No. I like your statements and restatements. Some of them i'll have to think about some...

And a lot of your statements (and mine too) would be easy to pick hairs and argue over - as in two practitioners doing two obviously different practices but still claiming to adhere to these definitions of classical...

Btw - i got that 'filling in the corners" name for this concept from LOTR :-)

I think if i remember right, tomiki called it "painting the eyes of the tiger" and youre right - the first thing we do is all we ever do. We do this exercise called 'releases' atthe beginning of each aikido class - then years later it turns out all we ever do is releases!

Well, then, sage, I think you should read it again because I don't make this stuff up and I don't have any ends to distort the message of that book toward.
 
Pat

 

Very good! Thank you for the helpful comment. I think i remember hearing one of my buddies say that he'd had parts of budoron translated - i'll have to ask around. I have also seen a film where i think i recall a short segment of tomiki and ohba demonstating aome of the sankata weapon stuff - but it was short and not spectacuar film. I also think ive seen one photo on the internet of tomiki holding a sword. But those are about the only tomiki original sources ive seen re. Weapons

:-) thats right :-)

Funny - kotegaeshi and shomenate are just about the only aikido that i can remember ever being used successfully in real fights. But it is the motion and positioning that makes them so effective!

Glad youre back in circulation! Keep on coming back and discussing this stuff with me :-)

I sorta agree... mostly... but sometimes i feel like we have our list of however-many techniques simply because the students have to have /something/ to do - some jumping-off point into the exploration of the art.

also, interestingly, I got to work out a while back with a guy that has had an extensive amateur wresting and street-fighting background.  We got to playing around and I told him to "come at me" and he did this semi-crouch, semi-gripfighting entry and guess what technique happened? ukiotoshi - almost exactly like you see it in koshiki.  He couldn't believe that had worked so I did it 2-3 more times.  pretty cool.

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 9:38 AM, Patrick Parker <mokurendojo@gmail.com> wrote:

Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch - that's why I said  that it sorta states the theme.  But, that being said...
 
you can definitely see this sort of theme-and-variation thing running through most of the kata.  In nagenokata it is easy to see in the koshiwaza section - first is ukigoshi, then that doesnt work, so tori changes the fulcrum and gets haraigoshi, then that is not working, so tori floats uke and lowers the fulcrum, resulting in TKgoshi.  theme and variations.
 
you also see a theme-and-variation thing going on even more extensively in pairs of techniques throughout the various kata.  In the first 2/3 of koshiki and here and there in the other kata, you see a technique thrown one direction, then thrown another direction with a variation in principle and given another name.  nagenokata comes to mind as an example - uranage, then in the next set, yokoguruma.
 
That trend is also identifiable throughout the Tomiki kata
 
So, it might not be _too much_ of a stretch to think that the kata creators would do a theme and variation thing on a kata-wide scale, with the first technique or the first set setting the theme for the remainder of the kata to vary upon.

Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch - that's why I said  that it sorta states the theme.  But, that being said...
 
you can definitely see this sort of theme-and-variation thing running through most of the kata.  In nagenokata it is easy to see in the koshiwaza section - first is ukigoshi, then that doesnt work, so tori changes the fulcrum and gets haraigoshi, then that is not working, so tori floats uke and lowers the fulcrum, resulting in TKgoshi.  theme and variations.
 
you also see a theme-and-variation thing going on even more extensively in pairs of techniques throughout the various kata.  In the first 2/3 of koshiki and here and there in the other kata, you see a technique thrown one direction, then thrown another direction with a variation in principle and given another name.  nagenokata comes to mind as an example - uranage, then in the next set, yokoguruma.
 
That trend is also identifiable throughout the Tomiki kata
 
So, it might not be _too much_ of a stretch to think that the kata creators would do a theme and variation thing on a kata-wide scale, with the first technique or the first set setting the theme for the remainder of the kata to vary upon.